The Grove Medical Centre

As of 16th October 2020 Giving the service 3 stars for the moment as I only registered with them about 2 months ago so haven't given them a proper 'test run'. Cos of Covid have had 2 telephone appointments with a Dr Williams - who I believe is fairly new to the surgery. He was excellent - had read my notes and spent time going through stuff with me and answering my questions. Not overly impressed with the admin/reception/communication side of things. In particular information for new patients. My first annoyance is that you have to call at 8am to book an appointment!! Clearly that is ludicrous. If you aren't well at 10am then you potentially have to wait until the following day, set your alarm and ring at 8 with of course, no idea when you might actually get an appointment. Maybe this is a common system in some other GP surgeries, but not in my previous one. Even more annoying is that as a new patient, I had no way of knowing this - nowhere on the website or in the prerecorded phone message is it mentioned. I have mentioned the lack of info to a receptionist and the doctor so would like to think they will rectify it. Again this also might be standard in other practices, but to request a repeat prescription, I was told, you have to go to the pharmacy/chemist to ask. Again not so in my previous doctor's.The pharmacy told me the prescription would be ready for collection on the Friday - 3 days later. When I went back to pick up the items I discovered that they weren't there. I called the surgery and was told they had no record of the request on their system. This meant of course, that no GP had signed the request and, it being 6pm on a Friday evening, the earliest I'd be able to get my prescription would be the following Monday - if that! It was then and only then that the receptionist told me that patients can also request a repeat prescription by emailing the surgery. Again, this hadn't been explained to me when I'd spoken to them about repeats before and to the best of my knowledge isn't mentioned on the website either. One of the repeat medicines was quite urgent and if the pharmacist hadn't been kind enough to let me have it 'on spec' there and then, I would have had a very uncomfortable weekend... So yes my first experiences of The Grove Medical Centre aren't too positive on the administration side and I write this in the hopes that prospective new patients are aware of possible difficulties and that maybe the staff might read it and see if they can improve the service.

Mixed feelings with this surgery. Some of the reception staff are quite friendly and helpful , while others sit there staring at their screen like they can't see you standing there waiting and are quite abrupt. The appointments are pretty on much on time. I have never waited more than five minutes past my appointment time to be seen. The doctor I see has always been very nice and helpful, especially when I have taken my babies in. I have seen two nurses so far. One is very nice and bubbly, the other looks like she can't be bothered. Overall , it's a good surgery, they just need some better customer service skills.

Just of recent, had to visit the Docs, have been with this surgery for over 30 years now, and have seek a lot of Change, Totally understand the issues with Attitude, but sometimes people have to come to realise that, not all patients are nice, after all we are all human. The surgery has gone through some dramatic changes, my original Doc was Doc Shah, the father of.. I'm not one to run to the doctors every time I'm a little sick, but I can say this, if it wasnt for my Doctor i wouldn't be here now. You think a little Surgery 3 Docs and 1 Nurse. ,with thousands of patients. Demand is high, especially in the current climate.

Abysmal GP service, it's very difficult to get the GPs to do something aside from sending you home and telling you to take paracetamol, you need to go multiple times with the same issue and insist to finally get referred to a specialist. In the end I had to switch to another GP, if you were to have some kind of issue that needed to be treated ASAP don't trust GPs here to refer you to a specialist in time. They also have a habit of sending you to A&E only to be told there to go to your GP... Staff are nice in general though.

3'd time came with my kid with a rash and they sent me home, "there's nothing we can do" attitude when the farmacist said clearly that GP should at least give us a prescription (NOT happened!) Plus the countless queues every time ! Avoid ! Unprofessional and rudeness at their finest.